Mobile devices require charging over increasingly short timespans due to increased use, clock speeds, and other energy demands. As mobile devices intend to be, as their name indicates—mobile—the ability to keep them constantly, or intermittently within short intervals, charged serves as a major challenge to mobile devices users. Battery capacity while increasing has not experienced an increase that keeps pace with the increased energy demand of mobile devices such as cellphones, PDAs, laptops and the like.
Many solutions have been invented to attempt to deal with this problem. Some of these inventions include external battery packs which, when connected to a mobile device are able to give it an energy boost. Additionally, as in the case of certain cellular phones and laptops, an additional battery may be purchased for the device and carried around with the user. However, these solutions are less than ideal, since the user must spend considerable amounts of money on these solutions, and must also carry around expensive and sometimes bulky and heavy gadgets in order to charge a user's battery.
Additionally, a major disadvantage of current technology is that different devices, although they may have similar input/output capacities, have different physical connections in the device. Therefore often times, even when an individual may have access to a charger, it may deliver the correct energy input, but may be physically unable to connect to the device.
Many mobile devices have another limit which the present invention aims to solve. This limit is the inability of the device to output energy from the port from which it receives energy. This means that said devices may be charged but cannot export energy to charge them.
Another drawback of existing devices involves their need for external control means to initiate and control the transfer of energy between devices. Every known device and method in the field requires an application running on at least one of the mobile devices, or a physical switch located on the device itself.
Even if there are various devices for energy transfer between mobile devices that do not involve the use of such an application or physical switch, such devices may offer only a limited functionality, wherein energy flows only in one direction—from a mobile device with higher potential energy to the lower energy mobile device.
Although a mobile application running on one of the mobile devices provides for an effective way for users to monitor and control the rate, level, and duration of energy transfer, the need to install and run an application on a mobile device, complicates operation methods for the user that is often reluctant to install a new application on his mobile device.
Moreover, running a mobile application before every use of the energy transfer device, complicates and hinders the functionality to the user. Moreover, the need for a mobile application forces skilled professionals to produce a different application for every mobile device model existent. Such extreme measures often create severe compatibility problems with mobile devices of different manufacturers.
On the other hand, energy transfer devices with typical simple physical switches offer only limited functionality allowing the user often only to control the direction of energy flow. Such simple physical switches involve using fragile components on top of the energy transfer device shape preventing designs involving clean and slick designs lines. Using such physical external switch components reduces the device's life span increasing the risk of breaking the device.
An additional shortcoming of such devices is that when in transit or otherwise not in the vicinity of charging sources such as wall voltage, storage batteries, or charged mobile devices, there is generally no option for energy harvesting from the surroundings. Therefore there remains a long-felt need for improved energy transfer means and methods for mobile devices.